Read SEALed With a Kiss: Even a Hero Needs Help Sometimes... for Free Online Page B

her? Call it? Tell Commander Kohn that his idea of "thirty-days' leave for Jax to spend time with Tyler" had been a fiasco? A goatfuck from day one?
    Oh yeah, like that was an option.
    Kohn was a good commander, and Jax's mentor, but he had this slow cowboy drawl that told you, you were so screwed. Jax could still feel his neck get hot when he remembered Kohn's dressing-down, no less scathing for being delivered in that lazy, "I don't give a damn" voice.
    And Kohn had this bug up his ass about family responsibilities. He said he didn't know how Tyler's old DOD 1332.30 had gotten on his desk. Bullshit. He probably had the thing flagged to his attention.
    "How long has it been since you've seen your son, Graham?"
    "I saw him at his mother's funeral a month ago."
    "And before that, when did you see him?"
    "In April, six, no, seven months ago."
    Kohn had looked out the window a long time and when he looked back at Jax, his eyes were bright and hard. He let fall the thick manila folder containing a plan covering every contingency imaginable concerning Tyler's care as long as he was a dependent—Tyler's old 1332.30. It hit the shiny desk with a soft plop. The gesture was somehow a clearer warning than slamming it down would have been.
    "My friend, if you're smart, you'll take the leave you should've asked for as soon as that boy's mother died.
    "You go to North Carolina and you make sure that child is all right.
    "And you come back here with a new 1332.30 that is so perfect in every detail it could have been written by God.
    "I can promise I will review it. If I'm not completely stunned by its glory, I'll hate to lose you, but you're outta here. Your service to your country is valuable, but Congress has spoken: your duty to your dependent child comes first."
    Then Kohn had said something strange. He said, "Your son, does he look like you?"
    Jax glanced now from the window to the sofa where Tyler had made a sort of garage by propping up the cushions. His hair grew from a double crown as Jax's did, and, allowing for Jax's permanent sun streaks, was the same color. His face still had too much baby softness to guess what his adult features would be, but the gray eyes with their straight brows were Jax's.
    No doubt about it. This was his son.
    His son that he was screwing up with.
    Even with his ass chewed, it had all looked so simple at the base in Little Creek, Virginia. As soon as he learned of Danielle's death, he'd known the best thing to do was give custody of Tyler to Lauren. If Kohn thought he should take thirty-days' leave just to get some papers signed, so be it.
    Lauren would still have to take Tyler full time eventually.
    But it felt like quitting to let Tyler go to Lauren's house with the boy still acting as if his father didn't exist.
    He hated to quit.
    And it felt like losing.
    He hated to lose.
    Hell, it couldn't get any worse, and maybe without Lauren grating on him, he would handle Tyler's silence better.
    He walked into the kitchen where Lauren had a trash can pulled up to the refrigerator and was pitching out leftover food. "Lauren, if you're packed, why don't you get on the road? I'll clean out the refrigerator and close up the cottage after you're gone."
    "Oh Jax, would you?" To Jax's cynical amusement, the change in Lauren was miraculous. The tightly down-turned lips turned up, and it almost looked like there were tears in her eyes. "I-40 is going to look like a parking lot with everybody trying to evacuate. The sooner I get on the road, the sooner I'll get home." She closed the refrigerator. "But, Jax, I want you to know that you are welcome to come and stay at my house in Raleigh. Any time. I really mean it."
    Now she was kicking into the Gracious Lady act. He'd be about as welcome as a case of head-lice. "No, thank you. I'll stay here."
    "Well," Lauren had the grace to try not to look delighted, "if you change your mind, Tyler and I—"
    "Tyler is staying with me."
    When they were twelve, his best friend Corey